European Commission

When Ralte Lalrempui, from Mizoram in India decided to undertake research at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, he thought he would have enough on his plate with the language barrier and differences in culture. But then he came across another obstacle - he needed both a work visa and official approval of the PhD gained in his home country, and it turned out that the latter would not be so straightforward.

Ralte had already been in touch with staff at the Aragón EURAXESS Services centre located at the University of Zaragoza. They had been very helpful, explaining the administrative procedures and sending him all the relevant documents by post. However, when he took his papers to the Spanish Consulate it was unable to certify his PhD.

Hearing of this, the EURAXESS Services then contacted the Title Certification Department at the host university to find a way to solve the problem. By putting a representative at the department directly in contact with the researcher, the centre enabled Ralte to finally validate his PhD title from India and he set off for Spain.

Once in Aragón, Ralte visited the EURAXESS Services centre which gave him a warm welcome and a helping hand to settle in. Ms. Cristina Traid, who works at the centre, explains, 'We arranged an appointment on his behalf at the police station and provided the official documents he needed to obtain a resident permit, to ease the inscription process as he can't speak Spanish - yet!' They also assisted Ralte in obtaining a residence card and provided him with information about campus facilities, accommodation, language courses and other requests about the university.

After spending several years working on biophysics in the United States, Austrian-born Robert Schwarzenbacher felt ready to return to Europe. Thanks to discussions with fellow researchers in San Diego, the professor had heard about the Marie Curie Excellence Grants.

Robert saw the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) in Vienna listed as a contact point for researchers in Austria, and decided to get in touch. The FFG is Austria's central organisation for the promotion of research and innovation and is one of the EURAXESS Services Centres in Austria.

The Agency answered Robert's questions concerning the Marie-Curie application procedures and provided all the necessary information concerning social security issues and his move back to Europe. Robert describes the Agency as 'very helpful' and thanks to the advice received, Robert's move from the US to Austria was made easier. He was awarded a Marie Curie Excellence Grant and managed to return to Austria as a senior researcher leading his own international research team.

Saba Nasri Abu Farha's career as a student and doctor has been a mobile one. After completing high school in Palestine, he enrolled at the Lugansk Medical State School in the Ukraine and obtained his medical degree in 2000. In 2005 Abu Farha was offered the opportunity to come to Belgium to receive complementary training in pre-eclampsia for two years at the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at Liège University Hospital.

Saba believes that his mobility experience would have been vastly more complicated without the friendly and professional assistance he received from EURAXESS Services at Liège University. "As anywhere in the world, it was not easy to acquire the visa by myself without the necessary documents from Belgium," he admits. "This was taken care of swiftly and efficiently by the EURAXESS Services team."

But the support did not stop there. Once in Belgium, the 30-year-old doctor was taken aback when he discovered that most of the arrangements for his stay had already been taken care of. "I was surprised that all the necessary documents for my registration in the department were ready and all I had to do was sign Later on, I was introduced to Madame Brigitte Ernst who helped me to register with the city authorities." Abu Farha is confident that EURAXESS Services will be there for him when he needs it. "I am sure that the Service Centre will always be there for its researchers."

Jun Li came from Hubei University in China to the Czech Technical University of Ostrava to continue her doctoral studies for the academic year 2007/2008. Before arriving in the Czech Republic, Jun Li wanted more information about different visa options for her, the Czech education system, language classes and where to find accommodation.

Jun Li started by collecting her information on the EURAXESS websites, and quickly turned to the EURAXESS Services centre for more personalised assistance. Prior to her move she received answers swiftly by phone and by e-mail. Once she arrived at the university, the EURAXESS Services centre gave her a warm welcome and took care of Jun-Li. The staff remains in constant contact to help her during her stay at Technical University of Ostrava.

Damien is French and finished his PhD at the Hubrecht Laboratorium in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He was offered a post-doc position in the UK and in order to plan for the big move he wanted to find out more about the UK in general, where to live, the costs of living, and where to find possible funding sources. Furthermore he needed to find out about coastal towns, as a keen windsurfer.

Luckily Damien used the UK's national EURAXESS portal (the Network UK website) where he found all necessary information about coming to the UK. He still consults it today in order to settle in his new home. "Globally I find it's very nice and very complete...In fact, you can spend quite some time reading all the articles and also getting more information via the different links provided." He appreciated in particular the checklist service provided on the site which listed all the mandatory and important tasks to do upon arrival in the UK. This facilitated Damien's move tremendously and he will use EURAXESS for any future moves to new horizons.

A former doctoral student of Management Science and Engineering at Tianjin University (China), Guo Jun spent a year at Portsmouth University, UK, before moving to Lund University, Sweden. Whilst working on a project to investigate corrosion in concrete structures, the research engineer was awarded funding under the Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge (ToK) scheme to carry out research at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland.

In order to facilitate his move to Poland, Guo got in contact with the Regional EURAXESS Services Centre at the Silesian University of Technology. The staff provided tailor made support to help Guo integrate into Polish life so as to gain as much as possible from his time in Poland.